No plan to privatise SCCL: Pralhad Joshi

The Minister has clarified that the union government had no such proposal and that the allegations were wrong and baseless.

Hyderabad: Refuting allegations the Centre was planning to privatise Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), Union Coal Minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday clarified that the union government had no such proposal and that the allegations were wrong and baseless.

Replying to a question raised by Congress MP from Telangana, Uttam Kumar Reddy, regarding privatisation of SCCL in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister stated that the allegations by the MP was baseless. He said the SCCL was a joint ownership of Government of Telangana and the Central Government on a 51:49 equity basis and since the Telangana government was the majority stakeholder with 51 percent, it was not possible for the Centre to privatise SCCL.

He further stated that since the launch of auction of coal blocks, no one was raising objections against the transparent system of auctions as the Central government had adopted the most transparent system. The Union Minister stated that taking part in auctioning of coal blocks would be beneficial for the States and pointed out that States like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were also going for auctioning of coal blocks even though the BJP is not in power in those States. The entire revenue through the auctions were going to the State governments, he said.

Those who were involved in coal scams did not want a transparent system of auction, he alleged.